Rivers and Roads
by Shtuff
Summary: One-shot. Natasha, Clint, and a house in the countryside, surrounded by trees and endless fields of rolling grass. Healing in the wake of devastation is never simple, but maybe here, in this quiet place, they can try.


**So I have no idea where this came from. I saw Avengers and loved it and heard this song and loved it and yeah... **

**It's rambling and introspective and probably not all in character, but I hope you enjoy. **

* * *

Been talking about the way things change

And my family lives in a different state

And if you don't know what to make of this

Then we will not relate

- **The Head and the Heart**

* * *

Two days after everything came so terribly close to ending, Clint asks for a leave of absence. Fury looks at him, sees everything he's so desperately trying to hide, and nods. He tries not to show how thankful he is for the silent understanding—tries to preserve a little bit of his dignity as he turns and walks away, fighting the urge to run with every marching step.

He throws things in a suitcase without really looking at them—too wrapped up in the need to get _out _and _away _before he drowns in the guilt and the blood that refuses to come off his hands.

There's a sound in the doorway and he turns to see Natasha with a bag over her shoulder and determination written across her face.

"No," he says, trying to sound firm but only managing tired.

"Yes," she replies and her eyes spark with a familiar fire that tells him he has no hope of winning.

So he sighs and nods and ignores the rush of relief he feels at knowing he won't be alone.

* * *

When he was a boy, his grandmother lived in a house in the countryside, surrounded by trees and endless fields of flowing grass. He used to spend hours running through the green oceans, shouting up at the cloud-spattered sky. When she died, she left the house to him—because tragedy had taken everyone else. He was dying and killing in Russia, then—with arrows and knives and bullets he'd learned how to use far too well—and didn't give it much thought.

Now, he can think of no other place to go. There's a hook in his chest, reaching past the blood and the guilt, calling him home.

* * *

They drive in silence with the windows down and the wind rushing through the rented car. He's in jeans for what feels like the first time in years and Natasha is a quiet ghost in the passenger seat. The wind runs wild fingers through her red hair and even with still-healing bruises on her face she looks beautiful.

He doesn't tell her that, of course. Like so many other things in his life, it is better left unsaid. Instead, he pushes the gas pedal down harder and watches the road and the sky rush forward to meet them. He would call the sight beautiful, too, but he's not one for sentiment (or he tries very hard not to be).

He purposefully avoids thinking of grass oceans, childhood, innocence, and everything he's lost.

* * *

The house is sagging beneath the weight of time and lost, forgotten things. Several of the windows are broken, cracks run across the ceiling in some rooms, the plumbing has a fine layer of rust coating it, the doors are stubborn and moan on their ancient hinges, and several floorboards groan and creak loudly when stepped on.

It's perfect.

* * *

They clean in silence, battling the dust and mold with the same determination they drew upon to defend New York. It's a little surreal, watching Natasha perch elegantly on the back of a chair and wield a feather duster like a sword. There's dirt in her hair and all over her clothes and she's gritting her teeth as though the dust is the greatest enemy she's ever tried to conquer.

It's almost enough to make him smile.

Instead, he pulls a rickety ladder out of the shed and climbs up onto the roof to repair the damage wrought by winter storms. The summer air is gentle and heavy with the promise of rain and the sea fields ripple gracefully. He perches there for a time, watching the earth spread out before him in blue and green and brilliant yellow.

He told Fury once that he sees better from a distance. Even as a boy, he loved high places where he felt like he could reach out his fingers and brush the sky. The world is more beautiful from a distance—pristine and unmarred by tragedy. Up high, nothing can reach you.

Or so he believed.

Shaking his head, he turns his attention to the broken shingles on the roof.

He told Fury once that he sees better from a distance. He's not sure that's true anymore.

He's not sure of anything.

* * *

Natasha makes dinner and he shouldn't be so surprised that she knows how to cook, but he is. The silence continues to hover, almost sacred now, and he thinks that maybe he will never talk again.

Maybe that will be okay.

Natasha sits across the table from him and eats her soup and looks at him in a way that says she understands. He's afraid of how well she knows him—afraid of someone being so close to all the vulnerable pieces of him—so he hides his eyes.

He remembers seeing something worth saving in her once. He wonders, what does she see when she looks at him?

* * *

He wakes up to her screams. The moonlight pours through the old glass window and the sound is too loud in the silence. He wants to roll over and cover his ears until the quiet and the peace returns, but this is Natasha.

This is Natasha and Natasha is the only important thing left, so he gets up. The screams have stopped by the time he reaches the kitchen but he keeps walking. He knows what it's like to be crushed beneath nightmares and blood-drenched ghosts—when the skeletons shriek and rattle in the closet, demanding justice.

He knows, and her pain has always been easier to deal with than his own.

She's sitting on the edge of her bed with her face in her hands, breathing loud and ragged into the stillness of the room.

He knows and that gives him the strength to speak softly. Just her name, just enough to make her aware of his presence. Anything else would be pointless and he's never had much patience for pointless things. She looks up at him and in the moonlight her eyes are dry and devastated. He thinks, briefly, about holding her, but this is Natasha and Natasha has never tolerated displays of affection.

Or maybe that's him. Maybe he's too afraid to touch her because he thinks one of them might break.

"Tea?" He says instead because he remembers that his grandmother used to believe that tea could chase away all bad things. And that's stupid, really, but there's nothing else left to try and Natasha is nodding slowly so maybe it's not that stupid at all.

They sit at the weathered kitchen table, nursing steaming mugs in their hands, and the silence pushes away the ghosts and the skeletons and the screams of the dying. For a little while, anyway.

It's enough.

* * *

There's a dirt road that runs out from his grandmother's house, cutting through the fields until the trees swallow it up. He used to run down it as a kid—feet kicking up dust and stones like a small storm.

He's always loved running. If you run fast enough it feels like flying, like your feet are going to lift straight up off the ground and propel you toward the sky. He runs now, faster and faster and faster until his muscles ache and his lungs scream for air. He hits the trees and keeps running, ignoring the branches and roots that scrape at him and tangle around his feet.

He runs and runs, but he doesn't care about flying anymore.

He just wants to leave himself behind.

* * *

"This isn't how you heal," Natasha tells him one morning with sad eyes and he wants to scream at her—scream the very walls down.

What does she know about healing? She never tried it—just buried her brokenness until no one could see it anymore. It's still there, though, seeping out at the edges. He can see it. He might be the only one who can.

He wonders, what does she see when she looks at him?

* * *

He remembers, back when his head was still splitting open, asking Natasha how many agents he killed. He remembers her soothing hands on his face as she told him not to think about it.

He lied to her then. He knows how many he killed. He remembers every single one—every friend, every colleague, every innocent person he destroyed. Their blood is hot and sticky on his hands and it doesn't come off. He scrubs at it every night, until his blood mixes with theirs, but it stays. It might stay forever. He might just have to learn to live with it, like he's learned to live with everything else.

He's not sure he can. He's still breaking—head splitting open while he pours out—and maybe there are some things in life that are irreversible. Maybe there are parts of your soul that get taken and never given back and you're left trying to stich together the gaping holes left in their wake.

Maybe Loki took something from he'll never find again.

And that scares him far more than he cares to admit. Maybe more than anything ever has.

* * *

Natasha fights invisible enemies in the fields while he watches from the porch. She twists and tumbles, kicking and punching and flipping in a hurricane of movement that steals his breath. He's never known how to breathe properly when he watches her. She's like a force of nature—terrible and awesome to behold, taking down every obstacle that dares to stand in her path.

Now she fights with a viciousness that he hasn't seen in a long time and he wonders who, in her mind, she's trying so desperately to kill, who she hates enough to tear apart. He thinks he might know, deep down, but that would mean things he isn't ready to face yet.

So he watches and tells himself to breathe and Natasha cuts currents through the grass sea.

* * *

His own screams wake him tonight, yanking him shaking and sweating up out of blood-drenched nightmares. He scrambles off the bed, moves his arms and legs, and tells himself that they're still his to command. His body is his own. His mind is safe. Loki is gone.

His body is his own. His mind is safe. Loki is gone.

Two hours later, sitting on the roof under the star-spattered sky, he's still repeating those words to himself and wondering if he'll ever come to fully believe them. The holes are gaping and wide, waiting to swallow him. He thinks if he was anyone else, he would cry out all the pain, but tears are pointless and he's never had much patience for pointless things.

So he looks up at the sky and turns the words over and over in his mind.

His body is his own. His mind is safe. Loki is gone_. _Loki is _gone. _Loki is gone.

_Loki is gone. _

The stars wink at him. He wonders which one of them belongs to Asgard, where Loki is waiting and planning and still alive.

He shudders and closes his eyes.

For the first time since he can remember, the sky offers no comfort.

* * *

There's a river running through the woods—babbling and rushing toward the sea while the trees dip their toes in its water. When he was a boy he would swim in it until his skin was shriveled and numb while his grandmother guarded him from the shore.

She told him once, that you could never step in the same river twice. He didn't understand what she meant back then, but he does now. Rivers are good at forgetting, good at moving on. They bury tragedies and let the sunlight dance on their surface.

He likes rivers almost as much as he likes the sky.

He shows Natasha his grandmother's river one morning and watches her eyes reflect the sunlight. She smiles at him and then she's running, scrambling down the bank into the water. He's a little startled, but he shouldn't be because this is Natasha and Natasha never does anything halfway.

"C'mon!" she shouts, splashing water and sunlight and looking almost carefree.

He trips his way down the bank and the water is cool when it touches his skin. He half expects it to run red with the blood still coating his hands, but it remains clear and dazzling. Maybe some things in life are incapable of being tainted.

Natasha is floating on her back like a water nymph when he reaches her side and she cracks open an eye to smile at him. It's a gentle smile and he thinks it might be all for him—_only _for him—but that's another thing he can't face. He still manages to smile back, because it's really the least she deserves, this force of nature who's decided to care about him.

He floats with her, lets the river carry him where it will while the sky crawls by overhead.

Inside, where only he can see, the holes accept a few more stiches—begin to close.

* * *

In the moonlight, his eyes look pale blue and his fist is through the bathroom mirror before his brain can catch up. It's still stuttering and slow with terror and panic when Natasha appears in the doorway, wide-eyed and clutching a knife.

"It's fine," he says when it's not, blinking down at the blood and shards of glass littering the sink.

She doesn't say anything, because they both know it's a lie and to point out the obvious is pointless and Natasha doesn't have much patience for pointless things either. Instead she sets the knife down and returns with a first aid kit he remembers seeing her put on a shelf a few days ago.

He takes the gauze from her, wraps up his own hand, because he's on the edges of himself and it won't take much to shatter him—just one touch, maybe. And if he shatters he'll never be able to find all the pieces again, never mind the ones that were stolen.

She sits on the edge of the bathtub and watches him with calculating eyes. The pale light makes her red hair glow and it's there, on the tip of his tongue, that she's beautiful and he tried to kill her and does she know how _sorry _he is for that? Does she know what she means to him? Does she know that if he had woken up and found her dead he would have followed soon after? Does she know that he…?

He bites it all back—too much of a coward to say it and jump out into the unknown—and focuses on steadying his trembling hands.

The blood slowly turns the white bandages red and the silence is oppressive, heavy with all those unspoken things.

* * *

He spent most of his childhood in the trees, trying to touch the sky.

At his grandmother's house there was one that was his favorite—taller than all the others, almost endless, and he felt like he could climb forever and never reach the top. Now, it's almost easy, and as he settles onto a branch there's a brief moment of coming home.

The leaves rustle in the summer wind and the horizon is dark with storm clouds. He sits back and waits for the rain to come, trying not to think. When the first cool drop hits him, it's a relief from the sticky heat. He tilts his head back and soaks in the downpour.

From the ground, someone shouts his name. He looks down to see Natasha peering up at him with sopping clothes and a hand raised to keep the water out of her eyes. Thunder rumbles ominously and in the distance lightning crackles. It's not safe, being up here in the middle of a storm, but for a moment, he thinks about staying—tempting fate, defying the odds—but he's a solider not a daredevil and for the first time in a long time, there is someone important waiting for him on the ground.

He slips and slides his way down the tree, landing in a well-practiced crouch not far from Natasha. She shouts at him but the thunder swallows up most of her words. He's fairly sure it was something insulting to his intelligence, anyway. The wind is picking up, howling now, and with a shared glance, they run.

The wet grass sticks to them as they wade through it, cutting currents, sprinting. The storm nips at their heels and above the roar of the thunder and wind, he can hear Natasha's laughter.

They crash their way back into the house, slamming the door closed behind them and huddling in the living room as the wind rattles violently at the windows. They're dripping water all over the floor and Natasha is still chuckling—bent in half and vibrant.

Laughter bubbles up to his own lips and then it's tumbling free, tangling with hers. They laugh together and he feels alive. Like himself.

Like he's finally waking up.

* * *

He brought a bow and a quiver of arrows with him. They're the old-fashioned kind—wooden and solid without explosives or computer spikes or grappling hooks. He loves the feel of them, the callouses they leave on his fingertips. There's almost something pure about them.

He takes the weapons into the woods and shoots at impossible targets, hitting them every time. The world makes sense when he's staring down the length of an arrow, divides itself up into trajectories and distances and targets. His focus narrows down until it's just him and his goal and the tautness of the bowstring. It's like a symphony only he can hear—the creak of the bow, the whistle of the arrow, and the percussionist thud as it strikes home—and he revels in the music.

In those few moments before release, with his heartbeat pounding in his ears and adrenaline coursing through his veins, he can see more clearly than any other time in his life.

So he shoots at impossible targets and lets his mind empty itself of everything but the weapons in his hands and the distance and the goal. He's defying the odds, tempting fate, but there is no chance in this. It is an art, a skill that he learned to protect the things he cares about.

It is _his, _and he's never going to let someone take it from him again.

* * *

He kills Natasha in his dreams—spills her blood all over the floor—and wakes up screaming every night. Some nights there are even tears marring his cheeks and he wonders if her death is the one thing that would still be able to make him weep.

In reality, he doesn't think he would last long enough to weep and that's terrifying. No one is meant to be that important, but somehow, Natasha _is. _

Natasha is and Loki tried to make him destroy that—would have made him destroy her—and he thinks that maybe if he hates Loki for anything, it's that.

* * *

"I wasn't sure I'd get you back," Natasha says one night over dinner, looking at her food instead of him.

He understands everything she's trying to tell him. That she attacked him not knowing if she could save him. That she was willing to kill him, if it meant saving everyone else, and it would have _hurt _but she never would have regretted it.

He might have saved her life, once upon a time, but she's always been stronger than him.

"It's okay," he whispers back and it is. He understands. He's always understood her better than anyone.

"I'm glad I did," she adds, admits, and when she glances up at him there's that familiar fire in her gaze, daring him to think her weak for the sentiment she just displayed.

He never will. She's beautiful and a force of nature and miles beyond his reach and he…

He never will.

"Me too." The smile he gives her is cracked around the edges but it doesn't hurt.

* * *

The days slip by in a summer stream. He climbs trees and runs and shoots impossible targets while Natasha cuts currents through the grass sea and cooks dinner and patiently waits for something—what he's not sure of. He thinks it might be him, but he's afraid to ask. He's afraid of so many things these days.

The nights are full of terrible dreams and tea and silences and some days he thinks he's getting better. Other days his hands tremble when he fits an arrow to his bow and he remembers friends and screams and the blood all over him. Red in his ledger—as Natasha would say.

His ledger is dripping with blood and nothing he can ever do will wipe it clean. He's taken too much to ever give it back and far too much has been taken from him.

So he climbs trees and runs and shoots impossible targets and tries to sew up the holes, stich by painful stich.

* * *

"I couldn't have lived with killing you," he tells her one morning as they sit on the front porch in ancient rocking chairs and the rain drenches the fields.

It's his turn to be vulnerable.

"You could have." There's confidence in her voice and not for the first time he wonders if she has too much faith in him. "I never would've forgiven you if you didn't."

That's more like the Natasha he knows and it's enough to bring a faint smile to the surface of his skin. He wants to say something witty but nothing really comes to mind. Now that the rush of battle is over, words have made themselves scare.

He wants to ask her what makes her scream at night, what's shaken her, what he can do to help, but that's another pointless thing. She's never needed his help—not even when he was saving her life.

"The world would have been a dull place," he says instead, "without you in it." He means unbearable, but he doesn't have to say that for her to understand.

She nudges his chair with her foot, sets it rocking, and smiles that gentle smile. "Good thing I'm not easy to kill."

He leans his head back and looks at the paint peeling on the roof. "Yeah. It is."

* * *

His feet pound against the dirt road as he sprints, chasing the flash of red in the distance, closing the gap between them. Natasha looks like she's flying as she rounds the bend, heading for the tree line. He'd forgotten how fast she is. He'd forgotten a lot of things.

They're in the trees now, jumping over roots and ducking low-hanging branches. They're in the trees and they're flying.

It's exhilarating.

Up ahead, the forest opens up to fields again, and Natasha crashes through the gap, cutting currents through the grass as she leaves the road and vaults the fence into the field in one smooth blur of motion. He follows suit, catches up to her in the middle of the yellow and green sea, and collapses in a heap, panting.

She sinks down next to him, but much more gracefully because this is Natasha and everything about her is graceful.

"I win," she declares between gasping breaths.

"You cheated," he replies, struggling to get the words out.

"You underestimated me," she counters and she's right. He would smack her for the smugness dripping from her voice, but he's too tired to lift his arm.

The sky overhead is a brilliant blue and the summer air is warm on his face and the holes are closing up.

* * *

Natasha's wearing a sundress and climbing his grandmother's trees and it's one of the most amazing things he's ever seen.

She's beautiful and a force of nature and miles beyond his reach and he…

"You coming?" she calls down to him—dress billowing in the wind, making her look like something ethereal.

He moves up after her, scaling the tree with familiar ease until they're sharing a branch, kicking their feet loosely at the ground so far below.

He told Fury once that he sees better from a distance. It's safer from a distance, where emotions and fears and tragedies can't touch you. But Natasha is here, next to him, so terrifyingly close, and he can see better than he has in a long time. He can see her—all the iron and steel wrapped up in porcelain, all the cracks and tears and bloodstains, all the strength and fire and deceptive fragility.

It doesn't make sense like the world does looking down the length of an arrow, but maybe he doesn't want it to. So few things make sense anymore. Maybe that's part of healing—not caring about everything making sense and just living. One breath, one day, one stitch at a time.

He sees better from a distance, he's safer from a distance, but it's cold and lonely miles above the ground and the sky has never been forgiving.

Natasha is warm and solid next to him. She doesn't care about the red in his ledger or what wakes him screaming at night.

She's beautiful and a force of nature and miles beyond his reach and he…

He doesn't feel alone with her at his side. She's the only one who fills up the space—the only one worth coming back to the ground for. And that's petrifying and silly and impossible to deny.

She arches an eyebrow at him, a silent "you okay?" He's not, hasn't been, but maybe someday he'll tell her yes and it will be true.

* * *

There are some things in life that are irreversible. There are some parts of your soul that get taken and never given back and you're left trying to stich together the gaping holes in their wake.

Loki took something from him that he'll never find again.

But that doesn't scare him quite as much anymore.

His head still feels like it's splitting open sometimes and there is still blood on his skin, red in his ledger. He still flinches when he looks at his reflection and his hands tremble every now and then when he tries to slot an arrow. There aren't enough words for what he needs to say and a thousand things he will never say at all. He can shoot a target from over a hundred and fifty meters away but there are still so many things out of his reach.

He still wakes up screaming, with tears on his cheeks that he quickly wipes away. His body is his own. His mind is safe. Loki is gone. Some days he believes it, most he doesn't.

But one night, when the tremors are still wracking him and the ghosts are howling, Natasha sits on the edge of his bed and wraps her arms around him, pulling him against her. It's warm and comforting and as solid as an anchor tying him down to earth. And most importantly he…

He doesn't break.

(He knows, now, what she sees when she looks at him—the same thing he saw when he first looked at her: something worth saving.)

He doesn't break and it's enough.

It's enough.

* * *

Rivers and roads

Rivers and roads

Rivers till I reach you


End file.
